Introducing Myself — UCLA Jazz Guitarist & Composer Focused on Narrative Storytelling in Film
Hi everyone! I'm Niko, a UCLA Global Jazz Studies student, jazz guitarist, pianist, and aspiring composer for film, animation, and games.
I'm interested in using music not simply to accompany what's happening on screen, but to explore character psychology, relationships, and how characters perceive the world around them.
I'd like to introduce myself by sharing a rescore I'm particularly proud of. The scene depicts two characters clashing with one another, and I approached the score as a musical confrontation between two different worlds. I used jazz fusion as the primary musical language, allowing the harmonic, rhythmic, and textural elements to collide and evolve alongside the characters' conflict.
This piece was also awarded the Grand Prize in an International Youth Music Competition, which made it particularly meaningful to me.
I'd love to hear what other composers think, particularly about how effectively the music communicates the characters' conflict and whether the musical ideas feel narratively connected to what's happening on screen.
Alastor vs. Vox Rescore:
Link: https://youtu.be/qL5ICz1TTeQ
This is one of my favorite projects where I show how the two overlords of Hell in the Hazbin Hotel show where they engage in an ultimate duel that inspired me to re-score this scene. I decided to replace the original soundtrack with a Jazz Fusion composition heavily inspired by Snarky Puppy, because jazz functions as a universal musical language. It allows the two characters to literally share their 'voices' during the fight through the mechanics of instrumental improvisation and taking turns trading solos.
Two completely different demonic eras clash here: Alastor, hailing from the Great Stock Market crash of the swinging 1920s, and Vox, emerging from the modern, contemporary digital aftermarket. Their main instruments take turns in an aggressive dialogue, as if one is desperately trying to 'outplay' or 'outperform' the other. For Vox, I utilized multiple synthesizers executing complex melodies at odd rhythms to emphasize his tech-savvy atmosphere, simulating his internal circuits and systems becoming physically overheated as the fight intensifies. For Alastor, I used a piercing trumpet and some rhythmic stride piano to emphasize his decaying, organic analog frequency, capturing both his theatrical showmanship and the sinister, vintage radio-filter chaos that anchors his power.
Driven by a blistering 160BPM tempo that gradually ascends slowly as the fight progresses, metric modulation, and unstable polyrhythmic displacements, the score shifts from mere accompaniment into a simulation of hardware failure, where the two god-like entities attempting to violently overwrite each other on the exact same bandwidth.
NOTE: I do not own anything related to Hazbin Hotel. All rights are reserved to Vivziepop and Spindlehorse.
© 2026 Niko Macario
Thanks for listening! I'm looking forward to learning from and connecting with everyone here.